Despite political momentum for comprehensive immigration reform, frustrations were rising Friday as bipartisan Senate negotiators struggled to come to an agreement on details of an immigrant-worker program and other sticking points.

The Senate’s so-called Gang of Eight had hoped to resolve the issues before returning home for a two-week state work period so that staff could put together a bill that would be ready for introduction when the Senate returns the week of April 8.

Immigration-reform advocates expressed confidence that, despite some “last-minute hiccups,” the proposed broad overhaul largely appeared to be coming together and that by working over the recess, the four Democrat and four Republican senators and their aides can accomplish their goal.

However, the past few days of closed-door talks are said to have been especially brutal as business and labor interests staked out ground over wage levels and visa caps for future immigrant workers.

Details of a proposed border-security commission also have yet to be worked out.

“Everybody wants a deal,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Thursday night after he and other Senate negotiators met for more than three hours. “We’ve worked through most of the issues. We’ve just got a few of the tough ones left.”

Besides Flake, the Gang of Eight consists of Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

The senators came to terms on a framework of principles in late January and have been meeting ever since to put the ideas in bill form.

Generally, the legislation would link enhanced border security with a lengthy pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

Similar immigration-reform efforts failed in 2006 and 2007 amid opposition from critics who don’t believe illegal immigrants should be granted “amnesty.”

Four of the senators in the group — McCain, Flake, Schumer and Bennet — plan to tour Arizona’s border with Mexico on Wednesday, McCain’s office said Friday.

But although immigration advocates point to positive developments such as supportive remarks by “tea party”-style Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and a new Republican National Committee report that encourages the party to embrace reform, there are other signs that patience is starting to wear thin.

Time is a concern for supporters, who need both the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to pass legislation before Capitol Hill gets bogged down in 2014 midterm-election politics, which will ramp up after Labor Day and be in full bloom by early next year.

The Gang of Eight is under intense pressure to get the process moving as soon as possible.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., publicly complained Wednesday that President Barack Obama, a reform supporter, did not provide the Senate with a proposal and instead deferred to “a few senators who are engaged in secret, closed-door discussions on their own proposal.”

The Senate group’s initial deadline for coming up with a bill by March has “come and gone,” Leahy said.

Obama, who delivered a pro-reform speech in Las Vegas a day after the Gang of Eight debuted its framework, has drafted his own immigration bill. But he has let the bipartisan group take the lead, believing its proposal has a better chance of winning Republican support.

“Without legislative language, there is nothing for the Judiciary Committee to consider this week at our mark-up,” Leahy said in a written statement.

“The upcoming recess period would have allowed all members of the committee and the American people to review the legislation. Now, that process and our work will be delayed at least a month.”

Disappointed by the lack of legislation as the congressional recess arrives, local grass-roots immigration activists also are vowing to keep the heat on lawmakers during the break.

A coalition of advocates is organizing a telephone and online campaign urging reform supporters to contact McCain and Flake.

“We’ve been fighting, and we are going to continue to fight,” said Petra Falcon, director of Promise Arizona, an advocacy group. “What more do we have to do to get a bill?”

Sue Chinn, campaign manager at Alliance for Citizenship, a national pro-reform coalition of labor and civil-rights groups, said Friday that her organization plans more that 200 events such as rallies and vigils in 35 states during the congressional recess.

“We want to be very clear: We’ve got a movement that is ready to deliver immigration reform,” Chinn said. “The time is now for immigration reform, and we must put 11 million people on the path to citizenship once and for all.”

In recent days, the hang-up in the Gang of Eight’s talks has been over the future flow of low-skilled immigrant labor.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO in February released a set of shared principles on immigration reform, but some Republicans and business sources this week criticized what they characterized as union hardball negotiating tactics in pursuit of higher wages and fewer visas for immigrant workers.

Tom Snyder, the AFL-CIO’s campaign manager for immigration, said Friday that the labor giant has agreed to a program for lower-skilled workers but that it won’t be a temporary or guest-worker program in the sense that has been envisioned in past proposals.

Visa holders would have a right to self-petition for green cards and permanent status and have the right to job portability, he said.

“I think what’s going on here is we’re reaching the end of the line in the negotiations, and the chamber, frankly, is just beating the drums in a last-ditch effort to squeeze a few more dollars out of immigrant workers,” Snyder said in a conference call with media. “I don’t think it’s going to succeed, and I don’t believe their carping is going to stop the momentum behind getting a good bill introduced and passed.”

Frank Sharry, a longtime immigration-reform champion who leads the national organization America’s Voice, characterized the negotiation snags as “last-minute hiccups,” but he said he still anticipates an April agreement “that is going to have a lot for people to like.”

Bipartisan talks traditionally can get rocky, but Sharry said he believes both sides are motivated to get something done.

The issue is viewed as essential to Obama’s legacy, and Republicans, reeling from back-to-back losses in presidential races, are looking for a way to improve their standing with a Latino voting bloc that now is closely aligned with the Democrats.

“There’s always an issue of how you define ‘prevailing wage,’ because you don’t want to incentivize bringing in foreign workers to undercut Americans’ wages,” said Sharry, who has been at the center of immigration-reform politics for years.

“But how you actually set that, given different labor markets in different cities and regions and so forth, is a tough thing to do,” Sharry added.

Reform opponents suggested that the worker-program details that the senators are haggling over likely are of little concern to Americans who are worried about their own livelihoods in a still-rough economy.

“Any time you’ve got key senators and the president behind something, you’ve got to take it seriously, but we’ve been down this road before in 2007,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates for strict enforcement of immigration laws and reductions in overall immigration.

“I think the American public is going to look at the unemployment rate and the size of the deficit and the national debt and say, ‘What’s in it for us?’ ” Mehlman said. “The last thing we need is more people competing for jobs in this country.”

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